To Understand 'Forever'
by lucy.ditty
Summary: We are tormented by 'maybe's and 'could-have-been's, and so our hearts begin to question 'eternity'. [A collection of oneshots based on deathberryprompts]
1. Her

**_PROMPT:_** _grasping_

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 **. . .**

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 _I did not ask for her to come into my life. I did not ask for her to become such a great part of me. Entering like storm and cementing her presence in every corner and crevice of my heart and mind. I did not ask her to enter into my life. But I never asked her to leave._

 _And In my regrets, I wish I could have held her tight._

* * *

 **Her**

* * *

She was… is a moon. Glowing and pure. Hanging, flying, floating… above the earth in an elegant halo that surrounds it. It is one thing to be a sun that lights the light of day, but to be the moon that illuminates the darkness of night, she shines so much brighter than any sun could ever hope to be. Her presence was the like the light of the moon, and her eyes shone like the stars. I could not help but be sucked in by her radiance.

Her personality that was so much like the fall of snow, delicate yet resilient, and her being so much like the sword she wielded, powerful yet graceful and pure. She was someone who loved so whole-heartedly and so unapologetic – how much she cared for everyone was the only thing she never apologized for. Out of everything she thought she didn't deserve, the love everyone returned to her was the least of the things I wanted to give. Because every time the wisps of her hair would fall in her face while she tried to draw her ridiculous drawings, or her fingers would delicately grasp the hilt of her blade, she was like the light of a flame and everyone else a moth in her wake. And her smile… so innocent and carefree. She smiled for everyone, and she smiled for me. That smile that could fill the room and set the night aglow, in the haziest of autumn and rainiest of seasons, her smile is what could light up my whole world.

In the darkest of nights, she _is_ my moon.

And as I watched her there, standing with her small frame towards me, face away; her brilliance was slowly fading. I could feel my hand twitch from within my pockets, like a lost child grasping in the darkness. My moon was disappearing from my sight, and I was powerless to stop it.

I wish I could have held her tight.

"Tell everyone I give them my best."

I _should_ have held her tight.

"Okay."

In one last, fleeting glance, our eyes met, and that shimmer of the stars had already gone. Her eyes did not sparkle of the cosmos, but only held the dull shine of heavy rain. She was the moon, and the moon did not belong to the earth. She was the moon, and she did not belong to me.

"Bye, Rukia…"

She is gone.

"...thank you."

And the night had never seemed so dark.

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 **. . .**

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 _August 2016  
February 2017 - revised_


	2. The Questions We Never Asked

_**PROMPT:** excuses_

* * *

 **. . .**

* * *

 _"Yo!"_

 _And in a single word, their barriers begin crashing down._

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 **The Questions We Never Asked**

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"Just you today?" Ichigo asks, though he can see the answer just before his eyes.

"I could say the same to you," Rukia says a little snidely, "empty clinic as per usual?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that that should be a good thing?" Ichigo leads them into the kitchen, empty and dirty pots filling the sink. He hands her a cup of warm tea – the kind she always drinks.

"Don't know, maybe the patients are just too scared to come to you!"

He rolls his eyes and gives her a deadpan stare. She smirks.

It startles him how easy it is to slip back into their old habits of joking and bickering. How simple it was for them to, in that one moment when their eyes met, allow a carefree smile to lift and spread across both of their faces.

"You didn't tell me you were coming," he says with a lighthearted chuckle.

Something is suddenly caught in her throat.

"I didn't realize I needed to."

Her dejected expression was only something in passing. But he had spent so much of his life trying to be sure she would never make that face again, it only stung worse the more often she tried to hide it from him.

"You don't," he quickly interjects. His words stumble and he finds that there is an incredible itch at the back of his neck. "It's just… maybe I could call up Karin and Yuzu in advance. They've been wanting to see you again for a while."

"Of course." Rukia flashes him a smile. It isn't disingenuous, but it does not spread across her cheeks like it normally did. "Maybe next time I'll bring everyone else too since they've been wanting to see what trouble you've gotten yourself into."

"Hey, when have I ever gotten into any kind of trouble?" Ichigo questions. Rukia gives him a leveled stare and he sighs, scratching the itch at the back of his head. "I mean… since the war?"

He's relived when she manages a chuckle and take a sip from the cup. Her eyes glowing like amethyst in in the summer sunlight and he cannot help but marvel at her beauty.

Life is an immensely beautiful thing. Despite the pain and struggles, it can be filled with such warmth and give so much joy.

When her eyes turn towards him, his breath hitches and his chest begins to ache. It truly was too cruel of her to look at him that way, with those same eyes that she had looked at him with in front of the _senkaimon_ gate.

How terrifyingly effortless was it for them to fall all over again.

"Well…" Rukia is the first to look away. "I've got to get back to soul society. The jobs of a lieutenant are pretty hefty!"

She passes just by him when she moves to place the tea cup into the sink. She hasn't been there for long, but she's stayed long enough for them to begin to question. She always left when that started to happen.

And it killed him that her visits were growing shorter and shorter.

"Yeah, though I've heard that you'll be promoted to captain soon," Ichigo says, trying to prolong the conversation.

"Even if the other captains decide it, I'm not sure if I'd want that."

Rukia starts to linger and her hair starts to fall into the frames of her face. He wants to move them, but his hands tremble from within his pockets.

"Why not?"

"Because…"

They were questioning.

Questioning why, after so many years, she continued to come to the world of the living. Questioning why, after the war, he thought it best to return to Karakura-cho. Why did she not follow him through the portal gates? Why did he not go to meet her in soul society every once in a while? Why did they only seem to refer to each other as _nakama_ when such a word could not even begin to hold all the experiences and emotions they each entrusted one another with? Why hadn't he, at least once, thanked her for all the reasons she had changed his life? Questioning, after everything they had done (going through hell and back) to be able to see each other again and again, why –

 _Why are you still so far?_

The sun hadn't yet set when Rukia returned through the _senkaimon_ gates. And though this time he could see every part of her as she left him standing in the middle of the Karakura street, there was a sting in the corner of his eye as a pain in his chest threatened a tear to fall.

Life truly is an immensely beautiful thing. Despite the cruelty and struggles, it can be filled with warmth and give so much joy. But there are things in this world that life does not always give.

They had always hoped that a bond unbreakable through time and space would never wither under the pressures of god, but perhaps they were too foolish to have believed so. War changes people, and it was impossible for them to think they would have come out unscathed. There were infinite questions they had asked themselves after the war. And there were excuses they had always used to try and answer them. But in the end, they could find no reasons other than that they had given up.

And it was evident that, in doing so, they had given up a large part of themselves with it.

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 **. . .**

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 _November 2016  
February 2016 - revised_


	3. In the Mourning

_**PROMPT:**_ _dawn_

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 **. . .**

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 _In the morning, he wishes for dawn to never come._

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 **In the Mourning**

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Because he is in love with the moon, the brightness of day could never compare to the radiance of amethyst eyes shimmering in the glow of the night. Because his heart beats for the stars, blue skies paled in comparison to a silhouette bathed in luminescence.

Strands of midnight hair. Moon kissed skin and rose petal lips. He preferred the scent of the cold seasons to warm springs and summer festivals, the smell of cool air and fresh snow flirting with the touch of her fingers against his collar — gentle yet firm, like how she gripped the hilt of her blade. Her nose nuzzled in the crook of his neck, his arms wrapped protectively around her waist and a hand placed at the small of her back; they fit perfectly like two cosmos collided.

She smells of spring water and _ringo ame_.

"Are you all right?" she asks him. Her voice is soft and young like spring. "Kurosaki-kun?"

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, blinking through his tired haze.

"You were mumbling again…" she continues.

Strands of midnight hair are replaced with fiery, sunset locks and eyes of carob brown. And though her smile glowed like sunshine on her peachy complexion, he is made all too aware that hand he holds is ignorant to the grip of a blade.

The sound of summer rain taps against the window.

"No, it's nothing," he assures her.

She smiles.

His heart is filled with guilt.

…how he wishes for dawn to never come. For a man in love with the moon, whose heart beats for the stars, in the morning light he mourns for autumn chills and winter dew—

"Good morning."

—and yet he will lay with spring blossoms and summer rain.

"Good morning!" her voice has never sounded happier.

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 **. . .**

* * *

 _ringo ame: candied apple; a popular treat at summer festivals_

 _February 2017  
Revised - April 2017_


End file.
